


dying to see (how this one ends)

by petroltogo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Angel Castiel, Awkward first meeting, Charlie So Owes Him For This, Dean Actually Has A Life, Dean Possibly Acquires A Stalker, Dean is a Good Friend, Fluff, Humor, Just Forget Canon Completely Alright, M/M, Mary Lives, No One Is A Serial Killer, Part-Time Hunter Dean, Pre-Relationship, Soul-Gazing, The Angels Aren't Trying To Start An Apocalypse, This Is Dean And Cas We're Talking About Here, lots of staring, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:59:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: “—wait, why are you in the woods at 2am...” Dean’s voice slowly trailed off as his gaze slid over the stranger’s handsome face and landed on a familiar dagger in the man’s hand.In which everything is different, except that Dean isn't a serial killer, Castiel probably isn't a serial killer, and Dean and Cas are still Dean and Cas.Or: The alternate first meeting that isn't as alternate as you'd think, but exactly as awkward as you'd expect.





	dying to see (how this one ends)

Looking back on various, questionable life choices, Dean could sort of see why his brother was convinced that he would die before he reached thirty. Of course Sammy had been talking about his eating habits at the time, but that was truly besides the point. Not in the least because the day Dean settled for his brother’s rabbit food instead of a decent burger was not a day worth living as far as he was concerned.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just cholesterolthat could get him killed, not that you would believe it with the way Sammy could go on and on about the matter.

Not only did Dean like to investigate the supernatural as a hobby-slash-part-time-job ever since his mom had made him promise to always cut off the head when in doubt about how to kill something — and man, the parent-teacher conference that year had been _awkward_ and probably one of the many reasons why his parents’ marriage had inevitably failed — but he was also friends with some very interesting people. Most of which made Dean look like an overly cautious scaredy-pants, much to Sammy’s eternal exasperation.

Which was why Dean didn’t spend this lovely Saturday night in a bar, playing pool with Jo, like he usually did, and was instead walking through a huge-as-fuck forest with a weak flashlight and a lot of regrets.

‘ _It’s just a tiny detour, De,_ ’ Charlie had insisted. ‘ _Please? Pretty, pretty please? I’ll owe you a huge favor!_ ’

Damn Charlie and her stupid puppy eyes. Damn him for being a total sucker for said puppy eyes and unable to say no to her. You’d think growing up with a little brother would have taught him better than this.

Instead Dean was spending his free evening trekking through a fucking forest, in search for Charlie’s stupid dagger. Okay, that wasn’t fair. The dagger was _not_ stupid. It had been a gift from her parents for graduating high school and was her all-time favorite weapon. That being said, not every RPG they took part in gave Charlie the chance to use it, which was why she hadn’t even noticed that she lost the dagger during the play until about an hour after they’d gotten home again.

And because Charlie had a hot date tonight — well, yesterday night, by now — that she really didn’t want to stand up and Dean suffered from the aforementioned weakness for puppy eyes, here he was. Back on their playground, searching for the proverbial needle.

It didn’t help that the woods looked a lot less friendly after sunset.

Which was Dean’s excuse for why he screamed shouted in a very hoarse, manly way, when there was suddenly a face in front of him, blinking against the beam of his flashlight.

“Fuck!” Dean stumbled a few steps back on reflex and almost tripped over some unfortunately placed brushwood in the process. “...I mean, hi?” he added once he was sure neither his heart nor his legs would give out on him.

_Smooth, real smooth, Winchester._

Then, to make matters worse, his mouth decided that it had enough of listening to his brain’s incessant rambling and decided to severe the connection between them for the time being.

“Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have seen a dagger around here somewhere, would you?” Dean heard himself say, much to his horror.

_Great. What a fantastic way to not come off as a crazy mass-murderer._

“Shit, that came out wrong,” Dean hurriedly added. “What I meant was— Okay, I know that being in the woods at 2am is a weird thing to be doing, but my friend called me and—”

‘ _it turns out she lost her dagger when we were out here earlier today, fighting a great war against the forces of an evil sorceress that may or may not make a mean mojito_ ,’ died on the tip of his tongue because one, Dean always remembers a little too late that most people do not consider RPG the best thing since the Lord of the Rings movies, and two, it suddenly occurred to him that he wasn’t the only one out here in the woods, in the middle of the night, alone.

Naturally, once more his lips say words before he has the chance to actually think them through.

“—wait, why are you in the woods at 2am...” Dean’s voice slowly trailed off as his gaze slid over the stranger’s handsome face and landed on a familiar dagger in the man’s hand. A danger that Dean knew from experience was sharp enough to cut through skin as long as you weren’t shy about the pressure you had to apply.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

See if he was ever doing his friends a favor again.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Dean said more than asked, even as his muscles tensed and he shifted, placed his feet a little further apart for better balance.

It had been a few months since Dean had trained seriously — his mom was going to kill him if he made it out of this alive — but he couldn’t even remember the last time he had fought _for_ _real_. Certainly not some murderous psychopath in the setting of every slasher movie ever.

He was even blonde and pretty. Life really wasn’t fair.

“Do not be afraid,” the stranger said in a deep, gravely voice. A nice voice, Dean noted absently, then immediately cursed himself for noticing it in the first place. “I mean you no harm.”

 _Yeah_. That was reassuring. Especially when it definitely wasn’t an explanation for why this guy was here or why he was staring at Dean with the bluest eyes he had ever seen without blinking once. Seriously, Dean’s eyes were starting to tear a little.

“Okay,” Dean said anyways because what the hell. “Cool. In that case, I’m just gonna go on my way now, and you do whatever it is you’re doing. It was nice meeting you, buddy.”

Forcefully pressing his lips shut to keep himself from rambling on, Dean took a slow step back. He wasn’t surprised when that made the stranger take another step towards him — anything else would have been too easy — but it still felt like a hand closing around his neck, cutting off his airways.

“I apologize, Dean Winchester,” the stranger said. “I did not mean to startle you.”

And _fuck_ , but Dean could feel his heart freeze for a moment there before it suddenly started up a rhythm like it wanted to power his baby’s engine all on its own. This guy knew his name. He’d never seen this man before in his life — not that he could remember at least, and certainly not for lack of trying — but clearly he was on a disadvantage here.

This wasn’t just a random coincidence, this was targeted. And the guy had chosen the woods in the middle of the fucking night to approach him. Damn it, he was _so_ dead.

“ _Startle_ me?” Dean asked — and yes, okay, if his voice was embarrassingly high this situation totally justified his reaction — stiffly.

The stranger frowned. He still hadn’t blinked once as far as Dean could tell. He also still hadn’t looked away from Dean for even a fraction of a second. Creepy did not begin to cover it. And sure as hell neither did startle.

“Yes.” Still that same, deep voice without any further inflection. No threat, anger or rage. Dean was usually good at reading people, guessing their moods, shit like that, but man this guy was something else.

Dean had nothing. Well, actually, Dean had more than enough.

“I simply wished to return this to you.” The stranger held out Charlie’s dagger in his hand.

Dean flinched reflexively, causing the frown lines to deepen. The guy didn’t withdraw his arm though, so Dean slowly reached towards the dagger. He half expected the man to lash out — because while he might be unable to read any hostile intentions in the guy’s body language he also couldn’t read any non-hostile intentions — but he didn’t. Dean’s fingers closed around the dagger unhindered and he felt something like relief unknotting the ball of anxiety in his chest when the stranger pulled his hand back.

Naturally their hands brushed because it’s a freaking dagger and the handle wasn’t that big. Dean didn’t even know why he was surprised when something like a shudder ran through him — like he’d been zapped by static, except not quite as uncomfortable — and the stranger gasped.

He also still hadn’t stopped staring at Dean.

“Thanks,” Dean muttered anyways, because being uncomfortable as fuck was no reason not to be polite to the guy who could have stabbed you to death with your best friend’s favorite weapon. There were also a lot of reasons to be polite when that guy could still change his mind and decide to attack you.

The guy tilted his head and even though he was not as tall as Dean, Dean felt a hell of a lot smaller under the weight of this guy’s gaze.

“You are very welcome, Dean Winchester.”

Dean thought now might be a good time to make a run for it — except that would mean turning his back on this guy, who still hadn’t taken a step back or averted his gaze or anything of the sort. Dean shifted uncomfortably.

“Dude!” he finally complained after another minute of enduring the Stare of Something Or Another™ — Dean really couldn’t read the expression the guy wore at all — and his nerves were rapidly fraying. “Can you just quit it with the staring?!”

“My apologies,” the stranger said again. “But—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” Dean interrupted impatiently.

“—have an exceptionally bright soul,” the guy finished unperturbed.

“But sorry doesn’t mean much when you don’t adjust your behavior accordingl— wait, _what_?” This time Dean is the one who is staring, although his gaze is one of incredulity instead of what he’s suspecting might be _fascination_ on the other guy’s face.

“Your soul,” the guy breathes reverently. “Is _brilliant_. I have not seen a human blessed with such a pure soul ever before.”

Dean blinked. Once for being called ‘pure’ of all things — definitely a first and one Sam will probably get a kick out off, the little bitch — and a second time for the way the guy said ‘human’.

In Dean’s admittedly limited experience, due to having a life, no matter what Charlie might insinuate, the only people likely to stress another’s human status were those...who...weren’t...

Fucking hell, this guy had to be kidding him. That or he was determined to kill Dean via heart attack.

Dean jerked back, only to find out that there was in fact a tree right behind him that he now pressed his back against uncomfortably hard. On the bright side, at least he didn’t fall flat on his ass as he undoubtedly would have done if the tree hadn’t been there.

On the other hand, of course his future killer took another step towards him — well into Dean’s personal space, might he add — and stared at him from so close that Dean could feel the exhale of his breath on his face. Uncomfortable didn’t even begin to cover this situation.

His hand was clenched so tightly around Charlie’s dagger that Dean wouldn’t have been surprised if the handle would have his palm print permanently pressed into the metal. But he couldn’t bring himself to lift his arm and actually use it.

Besides, the guy had just handed the knife over, Dean reasoned absently. He wouldn’t have done that if it was able to harm him.

“What the hell are you?” he hissed from behind clenched teeth.

And seriously, the guy still didn’t blink. How Dean hadn’t seen it before he didn’t know, but this thing was _not_ human.

“I am Castiel,” the guy replied calmly because of course he was. “I am an angel of the Lord.”

Dean— stared. He honestly had nothing to say to that. Except maybe—

“Come again?”

“I am an angel of the Lord,” Castiel — and seriously, what kind of name is that? — repeated obediently.

“There’s no such thing as angels,” Dean muttered reflexively, even as his mind is already racing, turning this information over and over, trying to make it fit.

Castiel smiled then, and the sight of it strangely reminded Dean of the way his mom indulged his insistence that vampires were real before they got undeniable proof and it turned out that Dean was right.

“Of course we exist. Although it is true that we have long avoided mingling with humanity when possible. I now suspect that it has been your soul that has been calling us, to dwell so close to a human settlement.”

And what? The more this Castiel talked the less sense he made.

“Yeah,” Dean drawled sarcastically. “I’m sure that’s it. You guys don’t— I don’t know, eat humans or suck out their souls or anything of the sort, do you?”

Because Dean should probably check. Not that he was too sure what to do if the answer were positive — how does one go about killing a being that might or might not be an angel? — but it couldn’t hurt to ask. At least, Dean hoped it wouldn’t.

Castiel drew back a little — not as much as would be appropriate but it’s a start — in surprise. “Of course not!” he exclaimed. “Souls are our Father’s greatest gift to humanity, no angel dare to harm such a precious gift.”

His voice became softer towards the end, and when Castiel reached out in a slow but steady motion to oh so gently place his hand on Dean’s chest, Dean was absolutely powerless to stop him. Castiel looked— utterly entranced. Dean honestly couldn’t think of a better word.

He tried to imagine what his friends would say if they could see him now, hell, what his family would say. An angel being all over him because of his supposedly _pure_ soul. Dean couldn’t even _finish_ that thought without a disbelieving snort.

“Okay,” was what Dean finally settled on. “That’s good to know, I guess. In that case, if you wouldn’t mind, it’s well past bedtime for the humans of us, so if you could just let me—” he made a shooing gesture.

Castiel, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not move an inch. He was also still staring at Dean — well, his chest, currently — with an expression that Dean hesitantly named ‘fierce’. Great. If his soul’s apparent purity got him kidnapped into some sort of angel-fairy-woods, Dean would not be held responsible for his actions.

“Could you, uhm, back away a little?” Dean asked, annoyed with himself for how uncertain he sounded. But seriously, what kind of protocol did you fall back on when encountering an angel? The alien first encounter protocol? “Please?”

Apparently, his parents had been right all this time and ‘please’ really was a magic word because it did in fact cause Castiel to back away. A whole inch.

Dean didn’t bother to suppress an eye roll this time. “Dude, seriously, get off me!” he snapped. “I need to get home, okay? I need some sleep and these woods are creeping me the fuck out!”

Castiel frowned at him. “I would not let any harm come to you, Dean Winchester,” he declared with such genuine sincerity that Dean swallowed, unable to dismiss the claim out of hand like he usually would.

“That’s great, pal,” he said instead. “But I still have to go home. I don’t live in these woods, heck, humans don’t live in these woods.”

Maybe that part would get through to the angel who clearly struggled to understand how someone might not spend the rest of the night — well, early morning at this point — leaning against a tree and staring into the eyes of an angel.

It was like getting stuck in one of Charlie’s Lord of the Ring fanfics — although Dean dearly hoped that wasn’t the case, Charlie had a terrible habit of panicking near the end of a story and killing every character off in a gruesome manner — except those usually involved elves instead of angels.

“I see,” Castiel replied gravely. “Will you let me accompany you then, to ensure your save passage through these,” here, he paused for a moment, “’woods that are creeping you the fuck out’ as I believe you described them?”

And fuck it all, it had only taken Dean a single conversation to make a freaking angel cuss. He was _so_ going to hell.

“Sure.” Dean sighed, both because having someone at his side who hadn’t attempted to kill him so far really did make him feel a little better and because he had the strong suspicion that his agreement factored little into whether the angel would follow him or not.

Besides what harm could a couple more minutes do?

One of these days, Dean really did need to learn that lesson about not tempting fate. But today he was exhausted, had against all odds recovered Charlie’s stupid dagger, lost years of his life no thanks to Castiel, and discovered that apparently angels were real.

And that one of them had a weird obsession with staring at him. And walking so close to Dean, their arms brushed with every step they took.

That last part he should — and would — probably worry about. But not before Dean hadn’t gotten a solid nine hours of sleep, two cups of coffee, and recounted the entire incident to Charlie and Jo. Until then, he determinedly put the entire thing out of his mind and focused solely on getting home safely without falling asleep where he stood.

It was only the next morning — some time after 1pm, to be precise — when Dean opened his eyes only to come face-to-very-close-face with Castiel who was staring at him with intrigue, that Dean realized that maybe it wouldn’t be quite that simple.

After he stopped screaming, that was.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the madness xD What do you think? Any theories what might happen next? Or what would happen if Cas were to introduce Dean to his family? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments and have a great weekend!
> 
> By the way, if you're interested in Dean Winchester-related content or have a prompt for me, please follow me on [deanwinchestertogo](http://deanwinchestertogo.tumblr.com/).


End file.
